However, the Election Commission has not announced who who will be the new director-general of police. It said in an order to Chief Secretary BP Gopalika, “Shri Rajeev Kumar, IPS, Director General & Inspector General of Police, West Bengal, be shifted to a non-election-related post with immediate effect… The charge of Shri Rajeev Kumar, IPS, be given to the next senior officer in the Police Headquarters till posting of new Director General & Inspector General of Police, West Bengal…. A panel of three eligible officers for posting of Director General & Inspector General of Police, West Bengal, be sent to the Commission latest by 5.00 pm today.”
Rajeev Kumar, a 1989-batch IPS officer, has been at the centre of controversies. Just before the 2016 Assembly polls, when he was the Kolkata police chief, Opposition leaders alleged that Kumar was tapping their phones.
About three years later, on the cold evening of February 3, 2019, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee sat on a dharna at Esplanade to protest against the CBI knocking on Kumar’s doors in connection with the Saradha chit fund scam a few hours before. It was an extraordinary endorsement by Banerjee, who alleged high handedness on the part of the central agency.
In January 2012, Kumar was appointed commissioner of the Bidhannagar police commissionerate. After the Saradha scam broke in 2013, Kumar was made the head of a special task force that investigated the case. In April 2013, Kumar and his team arrested Sudipto Sen and two of his associates from Jammu and Kashmir in the case. Just a month later the Supreme Court transferred all cases relating to the chit fund scam to the CBI.
Kumar was made the commissioner of police in Kolkata in 2016. But he was removed from the post after the Election Commission asked the state government to do so following the Opposition’s allegations of phone-tapping. However, as soon as polls were over he was brought back.
On February 3, 2019, CBI teams visited Kumar’s residence to question him, following which investigators of the central agency and Kolkata police officers had a standoff. The same day Banerjee started a dharna at Esplanade in protest against the raid, alleging high handedness on the Centre’s part.
After about 70-odd hours, Banerjee ended her dharna after a Supreme Court order directed that no coercive steps including arrest should be taken against the Kolkata police commissioner. The court also directed Kumar to “faithfully cooperate” with the investigative agency.
Soon after the Election Commission order, the West Bengal government removed Rajeev Kumar as the DGP and made him secretary of the information and technology department. The government also named Vivek Sahay as the new police chief. His name was sent to the commission along with the names of Sanjay Mukherjee and Rajesh Kumar for consideration as the new DGP, according to sources in the chief secretary’s office.